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COURSE CARE

It Won't Be Long
February 27, 2015

It Won't Be Long

By Bob Vavrek, Senior Agronomist
March 17, 2009

cabin fever
Function:
noun
Date: 1918
:
extreme irritability and restlessness from living in
isolation or a confined indoor area for a prolonged time

Perhaps Merriam-Webster's definition of cabin fever provides
some insight regarding why those of us across the upper Midwest
tend to be impatient and susceptible to making snap decisions
about potential turf problems during that lull between final
snow melt and spring green up. During this lull we look at
brown, dormant golf courses each day and cannot help but wonder
whether or not turf has sustained injury during the many
thaw/freeze cycles that have occurred this winter.

Removing a few turf samples from greens and taking them
indoors to green up is helpful, but it can be difficult to
obtain a representative sample from putting surfaces that are a
mottled mixture of bentgrass and
Poaannua
. Knowing where past winter damage has occurred on greens can
increase the odds of success when sampling turf for damage.
However, every spring I hear a story or two about a course
where serious winterkill occurred on a green that had no
history of injury in the pastâ€¦so don't depend on a few healthy
plugs of turf on a windowsill to proclaim damage-free greens
this spring. On the other hand, if the plugs are stone dead,
then you better formulate a recovery plan, and do it faster
than our elected representatives.

The importance of patience was demonstrated at a nearby
course the other day. A call to the office regarding totally
unfamiliar disease activity on several greens made me grab a
camera and take a look. The symptoms appeared a few days prior
to my visit along the low-lying drainage swales as the snow
melted off the putting surfaces. They were described as dark
purple spots of turf about the size of a quarter. The color
alone piqued my interest.

By the time I had arrived, the wet areas on the affected
greens had just begun to dry off and the unusual purple spots
were still clearly evident and the symptoms were unlike
anything I had seen before. However, the dark spots were only
present on turf that was still submerged under a shallow layer
of water. Where nearby turf had dried off a bit, these spots
transformed into the straw brown lesions of classic
Microdochium patch, none of which was evident a few days
earlier. Anyway, there went our chances of discovering
"purple blight" of cool season turf.

We make so many rapid-fire, day-to-day decisions about turf
management throughout the growing season that it's hard to wait
even a few days to address a perceived disease problem during
spring. This incident made me more aware of the power of
patience when turf is dormant. Remember, there isn't any play
yet and the grass isn't growing. Jumping to conclusions may
result in an unnecessary, costly fungicide application or,
worse yet, incite some unneeded stress and panic to you and the
golfers before the season even starts.